walentys

Aronofsky has always dealt primarily with the theme of obsession taken to the extreme, to the point that it deteriorates or even ends the protagonist's life. His formula is:

Act I. Establishing the Obsession Act II. The Transformation Into a Deep Obsession Act III. In Full Obsession Mode, Life Withers or Ends

In Pi, the obsession was understanding the nature of the universe; in Requiem for a Dream it was drugs; in The Fountain it was immortality; in The Wrestler it was wrestling; in Black Swan it was ballet; in Noah it was devotion to God; and in Mother! It was building and maintaining her house.

But this time around we have skipped straight into the end of Act III. We open with cardiac arrest immediately, establishing that his life is ending imminently. But does this mean the formula is broken? Not entirely. The acts are still there; they just happened in the past relative to the story's present setting. Therefore it falls on the viewer to interpret everything.

In fact, interpretation is the central theme of this entire film. The very first dialogue is the reading of an essay which contains a very interesting interpretation on Moby Dick, even going as far as to interpret something about the author's very own life. We then see how the protagonist interprets the essay (which is itself an interpretation of something else) and applies it to his own life, showing that interpretation works on many layers. Not to mention he is also an English teacher online, who teaches interpretation of various literature and applying it to one's own life, as he's all about honesty and authenticity.

When Thomas reads a biblical passage, he interprets this and applies it not only to Charlie's life but also his own. Heck, even the pizza delivery guy must have formed his own interpretation of what Charlie looks like, until finally curiosity gets the better of him. This is in fact why it bothered Charlie so much; it wasn't just that the guy physically saw him and violated his privacy. But even more importantly: as an idealist and optimist he vastly prefers when people use their imaginations and form interpretations of something, over getting bitten by cynical cold hard reality which stamps out the infinite possibility of interpretation. This is also why he keeps his webcam off during teaching.

This was a major polar difference between him and his ex-wife: he even tells her "You've always been a cynic", implying that he is the opposite. She interprets her own daughter as Satan ("she's evil"), whereas he interprets her as Christ ("amazing person"). On the surface her actions do seem very evil, but he interprets them all as salvation, as evidenced by what she did to Thomas ending up as a net positive for him (in his interpretation).

This balancing of two extreme polar opposites is another major theme: he explicitly calls it out as such when he tells his ex he "needs to balance her cynicism out". But also take note that he is balancing his partner's past anorexia through overeating -- or was the partner balancing his overeating with anorexia? A bit of both most likely.

On top of it all, Aronofsky and the playwright Samuel D. Hunter not only celebrate the power of artistic intepretation and how it affects our lives deeply, but in so doing also invite us to interpret their creation as well. Is it a biblical story of Jonah and the Whale, is the whole thing a Moby Dick metaphor, or is he just a literally fat "whale"? Is the daughter Satan or Christ, is she the whale (she never forgets anything and whales are known to have impeccable memory), or is she just a lost girl from a broken family? It's a matter of interpretation.

The Clerks franchise, being the one that launched Kevin Smith's whole career off, is clearly his most personal and dearest to his heart out of all of his IP. Therefore it's no stretch to assume each Clerks entry is an amalgamation of what Smith himself is feeling or reflecting on in his personal life at the time of creating it.

And this time around, with Kevin Smith fresh off of a heart attack in his real life, it's no accident that themes of mortality heavily seep into every pore of this film. And what happens when we're smacked in the face with our own mortality? Much like the trope of our "life flashing before our eyes", it's very commonplace to look backwards into the past at good times and view them under a different, more appreciative lens.

This film is exactly that: the artist looking back at Clerks 1 (mostly 1, but a little bit of 2 as well) through that nostalgic lens. Smith's reflection on his own mortality bleed through to the characters flashing back on their lives in the same manner. Smith called this film his "Jersey version of Cinema Paradiso", but I saw it more as his version of Fellini's 8 1/2, especially given that he is literally holding a camera in the film.

The trilogy is now thematically complete: Clerks 1 embodied youth, part II aging, part III dying. While Clerks III may be an interesting enough art piece for these reasons, it's just nowhere near as funny as the other 2. To be fair, it's not really trying to be most of the time with the heavy themes it's taking on. But still, it is a Clerks film and a comedy, therefore it does have humorous lines and moments all throughout, even in the more morose moments. And these were simply nowhere near as funny as the other 2 Clerks films.

Overall this film did an excellent job on the nostalgia & fan service if Clerks means a lot to you personally, but otherwise it is the weakest entry in the series in terms of comedic substance.